The Department of Justice under Eric Holder can’t seem to help itself. Truth and candor have gone extinct. The latest lie involving the nomination of Thomas Perez to be Labor secretary is found in today’s Washington Post. Naturally, the compliant reporter, Josh Hicks, appears to make no effort to challenge the lie, and probably never will.

This latest lie about Perez revolves around his illegal use of his personal Verizon email account to conduct Justice Department business at his Takoma Park, Maryland, home. I testified to the House Judiciary Committee last month that when he was confronted with the question whether he ever used his personal email account to conduct DOJ business, he said under oath he “could not recall.”

The reason the question is important is because it is against the law to conduct government business on a personal email account. One reason for the law is to permit transparency, another extinct concept in the age of Obama.

When Perez was confronted with his emails conducting DOJ business on his home Verizon account, his recollection became less foggy.

Enter the liars at the Justice Department to cover for him further, courtesy of Josh Hicks at the Post:

The Justice Department said in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, that Perez used his personal e-mail account “to allow him to review or edit documents after normal working hours.”

So they admit the substance of Perez violating federal law, but offer up an excuse: he had to work at home.

Balderdash.

What Rep. Issa was not informed about by the DOJ are the robust DOJ protocols for doing DOJ work at home. Each year, DOJ lawyers must undergo computer security training. It is a nuisance because it diverts every DOJ employee, including me, from their regular duties. But nevertheless, the training is clear — you don’t use personal email for DOJ business and you don’t do DOJ work at home on non-secure computers.

DOJ has equipment and security systems available for attorneys who wish to do DOJ work at home. It allows them to log into a secure server using high-security log-in protocols. Perez could have accessed his DOJ email at home in Takoma Park by using this system. He never needed to use his own Verizon email account. And he knew it.

The reason he used his home email account when a required secure protocol was in place is obvious. He wanted to skirt federal laws which ensure transparency and shield his work from the Freedom of Information Act. When asked about this behavior, he lied to Congress.

Lied, you ask?

Yes. He said he couldn’t recall using his home Verizon email account. The problem for the Labor secretary nominee is that he did it over 1,200 times, and now he is fighting subpoenas to turn over the private emails related to DOJ.

Tom Perez has a habit of not being forthright to Congress and other investigative committees, even when under oath. Someone with so much trouble with the truth doesn’t deserve elevation to higher office.

"So they admit the substance of Perez violating federal law, but offer up an excuse: he had to work at home."

Not just the DoJ - every agency has a policy that you must use official equipment for official business and not personal resources. The DoJ has a VPN - so "I had to use my own email" doesn't fly in any agency. It will get you fired in fact.

Sorry Mr Adams but you are wrong. It is neither illegal nor wrong for a DOJ employee to use personal e-mail to conduct DOJ business. It is done all the time. However, it is illegal and against regulations to conduct security related work, law enforcement activities or other PII sensitive matters on anything other than DOJ issued equipment, communications or devices except as duly authorized by an appropriate DOJ official. This isn't opinion but based on being in the DOJ as a government employee.

My wife is a mid-level GS employee in an agency where there is unlikely to be any issue of privileged communication and few confidentiality issues; at most she might write a memo to or for a director that might, just might be subject to deliberative or executive privilege. Yet, she had to undergo comprehensive training and has elaborate security systems on her computer at home so that she can do work from home. So, a US Attorney just "accidentally" didn't log in to his Office network?

Of course, just to show you how unprepared Republicans are to deal with people like this, the right thing to do would have been to not let him know you knew he was doing it and get some friendly computer geek to hack into his emails for you. Then when you have a good stack of incriminating emails, you start asking him questions that force him to lie, then you start formally asking for the emails that you "informally" have and make him start scrambling and lying trying to avoid disclosure. Now if you're a "good" Republican, you can't use those emails you hacked, but you can sure use the information in them to make someone's life a living Hell. A little pressure like that and an employee becomes amazingly maleable. Don't ask me how I know!

"So they admit the substance of Perez violating federal law, but offer up an excuse: he had to work at home."

Not just the DoJ - every agency has a policy that you must use official equipment for official business and not personal resources. The DoJ has a VPN - so "I had to use my own email" doesn't fly in any agency. It will get you fired in fact.